We take you now to the Mayor’s office at City Hall. It is lunchtime and the Mayor is on a working lunch noshing on a bowl of tofu and cranberries with a dash of honey. Her brow furrows as she reads the report of the new costs of the Farmer’s Market renovations. The one where council approved spending $170,000 but staff raised it to $500,000.

“Your Worship! Your Worship, I have exciting news,” the Lord High Executioner blurted out. “I think we have found the solution to keeping you in power forever.

The Mayor looked up with the look of someone who doesn’t want to know. “So this can’t wait until I finish my working lunch. Work, work, work, it’s all I seem to do these days. My ceramic water pitcher is not getting completed to my satisfaction.” The mayor’s words trailed off as she remembered that she forgot to turn off the kiln at home.

The Lord High Executioner could hardly contain herself. “ But Your Worship we can adapt to a simple psychological experiment using a banana and five monkeys.”

The Mayor looked up with an incredulous look on her face. “Bananas? Monkeys? Whatinhell are you talking about?

Undaunted, the LHE described how the Monkeys attempted to reach the banana at the top of a stairway in their cage. “When the first monkey goes up the stair to get the banana the other four monkeys are sprayed with cold water. When a second monkey attempts to get the banana the others jump on him, preventing him from getting the banana. You see they didn’t want to get sprayed again and figured it out that would happen if any one of them attempted to get the banana.”

“Get to the point,” the Mayor snapped. I was planning to have a banana for dessert.”

“You see Mayor, substitute yourself for the banana. You have these seven members of council who have supported you blindly for two terms in office and are lusting to replace you.

“Every time you sense someone in the group is after your job, you pour cold water on them, figuratively speaking, by taking away some of their perks. This reminds the rascals to behave and do what they are told.

“See Your Worship, you are still the top banana in the city. “

The mayor ‘s eyes glistened with the thought that she could be mayor for life. In banana circles it’s known as the Hazel McCallion syndrome. But then, she thought, she may be mercilessly ridiculed for her banana stand. Oh! She thought that would never happen.

Moral of the story: Never covet the banana as you can easily be replaced.